Post by philknj on Oct 3, 2018 22:50:31 GMT
I arrived at Springdale GC around 9 AM. I had been here once before, but only to check out the range and pro shop, as it is private. I took a random peak at many player bags and the Mizuno JPX family of irons was a popular choice. There were 12 schools here represented by 75 players. Based upon Saturday’s scores, the scrubs started teeing off at 8:30 AM and the better players and teams would tee off later...they used split tees at #1 and #10.
The golf course sits on Princeton U. property and the club has a licensing agreement to be there thru 2036. However, the school has an out-clause in 2032. There was talk in 2016 about developing these 100 acres for University purposes...THIS WOULD BE A CRIME!
Ideally, I wanted to see all 18 holes, but based on the tee times of the teams and players that interested me, it wouldn’t work, so I stayed almost exclusively on the front nine. I don’t think I missed much from the back nine, as #2 is the “postcard” hole with gothic Cleveland Tower behind the green, while holes #5 thru #7 would make an excellent roller coaster. The scorecard says William Flynn is the course architect, which is misleading...it was designed by others, but Flynn redesigned it in 1926...to what extent, I don’t know. I’ve received a crash course in Flynn in recent years...Lancaster CC, Rolling Green GC and now Springdale GC...he is the all-time Mid-Atlantic master.
For the first two holes, I followed three threesomes that went out as solo players, the most memorable being a compact bundle of sugar & spice named Elizabeth Nguyen (So., Georgetown). Her parents followed along...dad is Vietnamese and mom is white. Lizzy had some pop in her swing, as demonstrated at the par-4 2nd hole, where she drove it 225. That’s not a tremendous figure, but the course received four inches of rain within the prior week, so the fairways had no rollout at all (lift, clean and place was permitted)...Nguyen was also 15 yards ahead of Amanda Brown (Sr., Princeton) and 30 yards ahead of Katie Lee (So., Columbia).
Nguyen told Brown that she was jealous of her being able to play golf “on-campus”. I looked up Georgetown and its home course appears to be at least 20 miles NW of the school. I don’t know where Columbia plays, but I heard Lee mention a 30-minute drive.
I had no expectations that these players would play like LPGAers or top-notch collegians from big southern or western schools, and I was right. In particular, from short moderately-thick rough, these young ladies were mostly dreadful ball-strikers. Later, I was standing off to the side of the 2nd fairway and heard a Fore! A ball landed about 50 yards short of the green...a Penn player from the 3rd hole came over to hit...based on the position of the ball, her drive must have been a shank or a huge banana ball.
It’s normal for players to use rangefinders in college and they are particularly handy on a course that doesn’t have a lot of yardage markers like this one. However, I never saw someone laser a flag from 20 yards away before (that’s my distance guess). The player had a pitch shot over a greenside bunker at #18...and chili-dipped it into the sand. Unfortunately, I didn’t make a mental note of who did this, or else I’d include her name here. I think it was a Penn or Harvard player.
Without a course map, I tried to find the back nine, but took a wrong turn and ended up on the front nine again, so I decided to forget about it and return to the 1st tee area around Noon. As the players departed the 10th and 18th greens, they were handed lunches in small paper bags w/ handles that carried the Springdale logo.
Maya Walton (Jr., Princeton) was one player I planned to see. In the 28 season of varsity women’s golf at Princeton, they have had only fifteen sub-70 rounds, and Maya had her third one earlier in the month at the Towson Invitational (Kelly Shon has the school career record with four).
Walton plays the game her way...no glove and with a ten-finger grip (I think)...hits a high tight draw with decent distance...plays Ping i irons and a standard-length Odyssey fang putter with a long mid-thickness grip. On the greens, she is bent over quite a bit...putts left hand low and that hand is at the bottom of the grip. This is also a ten-finger grip as both hands are turned underneath the grip so that her palms are facing directly away from her. I must try this one day.
I decided to follow Walton’s threesome for their second nine holes (starting at #1), which included Anina Ku (Fr., Harvard) and Selin Timur (Jr., Rollins). The Ku name is familiar in these parts as Anina’s older sister, Hana, played at Princeton...I also saw Hana at the 2012 WAPL at Neshanic Valley GC. Both Kus attended Ridge HS, the swankiest public high in NJ. Anina, who is much taller than Hana, was using an old Cobra S2 driver...TaylorMade P790 irons...two Mizuno wedges (52 & 60) and one Cobra wedge (56). Timur is the rare lady lefty. She was usually the shortest driver in her threesome. She moved the ball adequately with her irons, but her ball-striking sounded muffled...she was gaming the bulky Callaway Apex irons.
The 3rd hole was using the back tee of 442 yards. The tee shot was moderately downhill to a huge green with the pin tucked in the left-front section. The scorecard says it’s a men’s par-4 and the #1 handicap hole. For this event, they designated it a par-5 which was reasonable...I’ll bet few players in this field could reach the green in two.
I may have been on the par-5 4th tee when the bells/chimes of Cleveland Tower started ringing at 1 PM...and for a while I thought they would never stop...aside from breaks lasting 30 seconds to two minutes, the bells rang for 50 minutes! I assumed there was a computerized Quasimodo doing this, but no, I later discovered there’s an actual person who plays the “songs” at 1 PM on Sundays. Articles:
www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2015/08/05/sunday-afternoons-in-princeton-have-a-soundtrack-all-their-own/
njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-living/towering-sounds-carillon-bells-princeton/
If Flynn is responsible for the current layout of holes 5 thru 7, it wouldn’t surprise me. I love downhill par-3s and #5 is one of them. It has three tees ranging from 147 to 193. The pin was tucked in the back right. This didn’t set up well for Walton’s ball flight, so she hit the green short and left-center. An article I read said all the greens break away from Cleveland Tower...true or false, I don’t know, but Walton played her first putt that way. It broke several feet to the right almost went in. Unfortunately, her par putt (maybe two feet max) looped around the back of the cup and came back at her...leaving her a longer bogey putt that she made.
I spotted Amber Wang following the various groups with Princeton players...I remember her from the 2016 USWO qualifier at Canoe Brook CC. For whatever reason, she is not playing as a senior on Princeton’s team. I don’t know if they have red-shirting in the Ivy League or if she used up all her golf eligibility or if she graduated early or if she flunked out (I didn’t ask).
The par-4 6th hole goes back up the hill. It was set at 291 from an elevated tee, but the drive landing area was higher. To the right of the tee box was a white ranch house for use by club members only. The approach shot was to a small saddle-shaped green protected by bunkers. This was the closest hole to Cleveland Tower, so the bells were quite loud but not distracting from a golf perspective IMHO. Timur had a surprisingly long drive, leaving her about 67 yards for her second, but chunked her approach shot and made bogey. The next group had someone who pounded her drive two yards past a 50-yard marker and her second shot was all over the flag.
Yippee, #7 was another downhill par-3. Likewise, the 13th was a short downhill par-3, but I only saw that one from a distance.
I followed Walton’s group thru to #9 as they completed their rounds. I had no idea what their scores were, but none of them looked like they were playing in sub-70 territory.
There were later groups wrapping up at #18...the last group departed the 18th green at 3 PM. They had started at 10:18 AM (or maybe later) so these players were not slowpokes. The Penn St. team was camped out at the green waiting for Freshman Sarah Willis...they seemed to be in good spirits as if they had won. However, Willis went off to the side and dabbed her face with a tissue as her parents consoled her. WTH now?! At least it wasn’t a repeat of Angela Stanford’s cookie-tossing display at Evian. I walked to the clubhouse and looked at the score sheets on the wall...okay, I get it, Sarah stunk with an 80 (shot 72 on Saturday). NEWSFLASH: It’s a TEAM game...her sucky score was not counted...she could have shot 180 and Penn St. still would have won the tournament. They began the day three shots ahead of G-Town and finished the day eight shots ahead.
The closing ceremony started with Princeton coach Erika DeSanty thanking Springdale’s staff and volunteers for setting up the tournament. She added a note of thanks to her two seniors playing their final home tournament. Or, was it their last home event? I was looking over Columbia’s schedule and it shows them co-hosting a tournament with Princeton at Springdale on April 6-7, 2019...however, Princeton hasn’t posted its spring schedule yet. The ladies should bring their winter attire, just in case.
The low medalist was Ami Gianchandani (Fr., Yale) at 74-67-141, -3. It was her third tournament and the second time she was low medalist. It’s a familiar name because she blasted Canoe Brook CC with an opening 71 during her 2018 USWO qualifier before collapsing in the afternoon.
As I drove out of the parking lot, Penn. St. was loading up its super-sized mini-van...I’m guessing it was custom-made for the golf team so you’d have a convenient compartment for golf bags and push carts. At least three other teams had vans like that. I recall seeing pics of the Korean National teams having vans like these.
I didn’t see a van with a Rollins (Florida) logo, which was no surprise. I looked up their schedule and they played at Penn St. the weekend before. I wonder if they stayed up north after that or returned to Florida and flew back here again. That’s a rough schedule either way.
Final scores:
results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=16966&x=0.790240755535
The golf course sits on Princeton U. property and the club has a licensing agreement to be there thru 2036. However, the school has an out-clause in 2032. There was talk in 2016 about developing these 100 acres for University purposes...THIS WOULD BE A CRIME!
Ideally, I wanted to see all 18 holes, but based on the tee times of the teams and players that interested me, it wouldn’t work, so I stayed almost exclusively on the front nine. I don’t think I missed much from the back nine, as #2 is the “postcard” hole with gothic Cleveland Tower behind the green, while holes #5 thru #7 would make an excellent roller coaster. The scorecard says William Flynn is the course architect, which is misleading...it was designed by others, but Flynn redesigned it in 1926...to what extent, I don’t know. I’ve received a crash course in Flynn in recent years...Lancaster CC, Rolling Green GC and now Springdale GC...he is the all-time Mid-Atlantic master.
For the first two holes, I followed three threesomes that went out as solo players, the most memorable being a compact bundle of sugar & spice named Elizabeth Nguyen (So., Georgetown). Her parents followed along...dad is Vietnamese and mom is white. Lizzy had some pop in her swing, as demonstrated at the par-4 2nd hole, where she drove it 225. That’s not a tremendous figure, but the course received four inches of rain within the prior week, so the fairways had no rollout at all (lift, clean and place was permitted)...Nguyen was also 15 yards ahead of Amanda Brown (Sr., Princeton) and 30 yards ahead of Katie Lee (So., Columbia).
Nguyen told Brown that she was jealous of her being able to play golf “on-campus”. I looked up Georgetown and its home course appears to be at least 20 miles NW of the school. I don’t know where Columbia plays, but I heard Lee mention a 30-minute drive.
As for #2 at 345 yards, it is straight, medium width, and almost flat...ideal as a drive measuring hole. The best one during my limited time there was 250 by Cara Basso (Sr., Penn St.). Here’s the view from the fairway...more about Cleveland Tower later.
I had no expectations that these players would play like LPGAers or top-notch collegians from big southern or western schools, and I was right. In particular, from short moderately-thick rough, these young ladies were mostly dreadful ball-strikers. Later, I was standing off to the side of the 2nd fairway and heard a Fore! A ball landed about 50 yards short of the green...a Penn player from the 3rd hole came over to hit...based on the position of the ball, her drive must have been a shank or a huge banana ball.
It’s normal for players to use rangefinders in college and they are particularly handy on a course that doesn’t have a lot of yardage markers like this one. However, I never saw someone laser a flag from 20 yards away before (that’s my distance guess). The player had a pitch shot over a greenside bunker at #18...and chili-dipped it into the sand. Unfortunately, I didn’t make a mental note of who did this, or else I’d include her name here. I think it was a Penn or Harvard player.
Without a course map, I tried to find the back nine, but took a wrong turn and ended up on the front nine again, so I decided to forget about it and return to the 1st tee area around Noon. As the players departed the 10th and 18th greens, they were handed lunches in small paper bags w/ handles that carried the Springdale logo.
Maya Walton (Jr., Princeton) was one player I planned to see. In the 28 season of varsity women’s golf at Princeton, they have had only fifteen sub-70 rounds, and Maya had her third one earlier in the month at the Towson Invitational (Kelly Shon has the school career record with four).
Walton plays the game her way...no glove and with a ten-finger grip (I think)...hits a high tight draw with decent distance...plays Ping i irons and a standard-length Odyssey fang putter with a long mid-thickness grip. On the greens, she is bent over quite a bit...putts left hand low and that hand is at the bottom of the grip. This is also a ten-finger grip as both hands are turned underneath the grip so that her palms are facing directly away from her. I must try this one day.
I decided to follow Walton’s threesome for their second nine holes (starting at #1), which included Anina Ku (Fr., Harvard) and Selin Timur (Jr., Rollins). The Ku name is familiar in these parts as Anina’s older sister, Hana, played at Princeton...I also saw Hana at the 2012 WAPL at Neshanic Valley GC. Both Kus attended Ridge HS, the swankiest public high in NJ. Anina, who is much taller than Hana, was using an old Cobra S2 driver...TaylorMade P790 irons...two Mizuno wedges (52 & 60) and one Cobra wedge (56). Timur is the rare lady lefty. She was usually the shortest driver in her threesome. She moved the ball adequately with her irons, but her ball-striking sounded muffled...she was gaming the bulky Callaway Apex irons.
The 3rd hole was using the back tee of 442 yards. The tee shot was moderately downhill to a huge green with the pin tucked in the left-front section. The scorecard says it’s a men’s par-4 and the #1 handicap hole. For this event, they designated it a par-5 which was reasonable...I’ll bet few players in this field could reach the green in two.
I may have been on the par-5 4th tee when the bells/chimes of Cleveland Tower started ringing at 1 PM...and for a while I thought they would never stop...aside from breaks lasting 30 seconds to two minutes, the bells rang for 50 minutes! I assumed there was a computerized Quasimodo doing this, but no, I later discovered there’s an actual person who plays the “songs” at 1 PM on Sundays. Articles:
www.towntopics.com/wordpress/2015/08/05/sunday-afternoons-in-princeton-have-a-soundtrack-all-their-own/
njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-living/towering-sounds-carillon-bells-princeton/
If Flynn is responsible for the current layout of holes 5 thru 7, it wouldn’t surprise me. I love downhill par-3s and #5 is one of them. It has three tees ranging from 147 to 193. The pin was tucked in the back right. This didn’t set up well for Walton’s ball flight, so she hit the green short and left-center. An article I read said all the greens break away from Cleveland Tower...true or false, I don’t know, but Walton played her first putt that way. It broke several feet to the right almost went in. Unfortunately, her par putt (maybe two feet max) looped around the back of the cup and came back at her...leaving her a longer bogey putt that she made.
I spotted Amber Wang following the various groups with Princeton players...I remember her from the 2016 USWO qualifier at Canoe Brook CC. For whatever reason, she is not playing as a senior on Princeton’s team. I don’t know if they have red-shirting in the Ivy League or if she used up all her golf eligibility or if she graduated early or if she flunked out (I didn’t ask).
The par-4 6th hole goes back up the hill. It was set at 291 from an elevated tee, but the drive landing area was higher. To the right of the tee box was a white ranch house for use by club members only. The approach shot was to a small saddle-shaped green protected by bunkers. This was the closest hole to Cleveland Tower, so the bells were quite loud but not distracting from a golf perspective IMHO. Timur had a surprisingly long drive, leaving her about 67 yards for her second, but chunked her approach shot and made bogey. The next group had someone who pounded her drive two yards past a 50-yard marker and her second shot was all over the flag.
Yippee, #7 was another downhill par-3. Likewise, the 13th was a short downhill par-3, but I only saw that one from a distance.
I followed Walton’s group thru to #9 as they completed their rounds. I had no idea what their scores were, but none of them looked like they were playing in sub-70 territory.
There were later groups wrapping up at #18...the last group departed the 18th green at 3 PM. They had started at 10:18 AM (or maybe later) so these players were not slowpokes. The Penn St. team was camped out at the green waiting for Freshman Sarah Willis...they seemed to be in good spirits as if they had won. However, Willis went off to the side and dabbed her face with a tissue as her parents consoled her. WTH now?! At least it wasn’t a repeat of Angela Stanford’s cookie-tossing display at Evian. I walked to the clubhouse and looked at the score sheets on the wall...okay, I get it, Sarah stunk with an 80 (shot 72 on Saturday). NEWSFLASH: It’s a TEAM game...her sucky score was not counted...she could have shot 180 and Penn St. still would have won the tournament. They began the day three shots ahead of G-Town and finished the day eight shots ahead.
The closing ceremony started with Princeton coach Erika DeSanty thanking Springdale’s staff and volunteers for setting up the tournament. She added a note of thanks to her two seniors playing their final home tournament. Or, was it their last home event? I was looking over Columbia’s schedule and it shows them co-hosting a tournament with Princeton at Springdale on April 6-7, 2019...however, Princeton hasn’t posted its spring schedule yet. The ladies should bring their winter attire, just in case.
The low medalist was Ami Gianchandani (Fr., Yale) at 74-67-141, -3. It was her third tournament and the second time she was low medalist. It’s a familiar name because she blasted Canoe Brook CC with an opening 71 during her 2018 USWO qualifier before collapsing in the afternoon.
As I drove out of the parking lot, Penn. St. was loading up its super-sized mini-van...I’m guessing it was custom-made for the golf team so you’d have a convenient compartment for golf bags and push carts. At least three other teams had vans like that. I recall seeing pics of the Korean National teams having vans like these.
I didn’t see a van with a Rollins (Florida) logo, which was no surprise. I looked up their schedule and they played at Penn St. the weekend before. I wonder if they stayed up north after that or returned to Florida and flew back here again. That’s a rough schedule either way.
Final scores:
results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=16966&x=0.790240755535